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Bully for him for being critical of the crap the Bush administration pushed on us for 8 years, but how does voting for someone even more socialist than Bush help you voice your displeasure with socialism? I’m lost.

I guess I can relate on some level. I’ve rationalized drowning potato chips in dip before. I mean, hey, I’m already eating like crap–might as well go all the way with it.

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You laugh, but I’d actually like to encourage Congress to spend more time doing stuff like this and less time, you know,  legislating. We can limit their damage by relegating them to doing school cheers, quoting stats, and generally flexing their public speaking muscles about sporting events.

For her efforts to filabuster any spending or attacks on liberty in Congress for almost four whole minutes, I want to gratulate Corrine Brown on sportmanship and one of the best defense plays that I’ve seen in Congress.

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But it’s important to remember that rhetoric and logic, while related, are not the same thing. For example, let’s look at this tweet my buddy Alex wrote the other day:

A former professor once told me, “studies show those who demand less government score lowest on their understanding of how it’s designed.”

That’s a powerful statement, and is even more powerful given the fact that Alex was able to clearly express it in less than 140 characters. But it makes a rhetorical implication, not a logical implication. It’s pretty obvious to me that the intended implication here is that people who favor small government don’t know what they are talking about. But if we break this statement down logically, it’s pretty weak.

Some background first–there are four possibilities in a simple logical implication, which is represented by this table.

Possibility 1: Given the correct information, you come to the proper conclusion. This is an acceptable result (indicated by T). Makes sense right?

Possibility 2: Given the correct information, you come to the wrong conclusion. This is not an acceptable result (indicated by F). This means that the information was processed incorrectly–faulty logic.

Possibility 3: Given false information, you still come up with the correct answer. This is an acceptable result. Imagine blindly guessing on a multiple choice quiz–you still get credit if you fill in the correct bubble, right?

Possibility 4: Given false information, you come up with the wrong answer. This is an acceptable result. It is reasonable to expect you’d get the answer wrong if your information is suspect.

Now, let’s assume Alex’s statement is true. Let’s assume people who favor small government really do score lowest. That would mean they are basing their decision on false or faulty information. Although the rhetoric presented would lead us to believe they can’t possibly be correct in favoring small government because they are ignorant (Possibility 4) , a quick glance at our truth table shows us that it is still possible for them to arrive at the correct conclusion (Possibility 3).

Think of it this way–let’s say you fall off a ladder and break your arm. Your ignorance of the gravitational constant, the tensile strength of your bones, or even basic anatomy doesn’t change the fact that your arm is broken. Even if you are given a completely false explanation that you believe to be true as to how your arm was broken, it’s still broken.

In other words, you can be completely ignorant, yet still be perfectly capable of stating the truth.

Of course, it’s a huge leap to assume Alex’s statement is true to begin with. It brings up all types of questions:

1. What studies, what professor, what test, and who was tested?
2. What is this professor’s area of expertise?
3. When was the study conducted? Where? By whom?
4. Who funded the study?
5. Is there a similar study on those who favor big government?
6. Have you seen this study yourself? Does it even exist?

Although I disagree with his statement, It’s not my intention to pile on Alex here, but to point out how rhetoric is used by every side of an argument to make a point.

Videos are especially effective in using rhetoric to make points. A really popular method is to show clips of complete ignoramuses and make the implication that these fools represent the entirety of the group they are associated with. I see people post them, and I’ve posted them as well. Take a look at these two videos which represent “both” sides, and keep in mind the purpose of the person who produced them. After watching each one, ask yourself a few questions:

1. Do I have true, unbiased information about this group of people?
2. If I can’t say that my information is completely true, how much trust do I put in my conclusion?
3. Does this video reinforce what I already believe to be true/false? Is that why I like/dislike it?

My point–there’s nothing wrong with writing, posting, plagiarizing, enjoying, spreading, dispersing, selling, buying, manufacturing and encouraging rhetoric. Just recognize it for what it is.

And if you don’t have the ability to recognize the difference, you are an ignoramus.

Q.E.D.

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1. Watch for the people who show up late. If the Tea Party you are attending is early in the morning, there’s a good chance it won’t be infiltrated at all.
2. Smokers. They’ll also be attending the “Free Health Care for Everyone Rally” later that day and will have stocked up on smokes for both events. Bonus points if they are smoking cloves cigarettes.
3. Patchouli.
4. Anyone who is brought to tears over the heartbreaking story of someone else’s tax bill and shouts, “the government should do something to protect us from these evil people who are taxing us!”
5. Anyone complaining it isn’t fair that people who arrived before them get better spots at the rally.

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Doctors, lawyers, engineers, car salesmen, politicians, school teachers, reporters…the list goes on and on.  Is there any profession out there that isn’t loathed by anyone? I’d say firefighters and nurses–maybe. But even librarians irritate me. They walk around pretending Google can’t do their job 1,000,000 times more efficiently than they can.

What is the ratio of right-handed to left-handed pitchers in MLB? It seems like there are just about as many lefties as righties, even though there aren’t nearly as many left-handed people in the general population. The logical conclusion is that there are lots of right-handed people out there with good stuff, or at least the potential to have it. Why don’t I know any of these people?

When we played battleball/dodeball in middle school, why were you out if you hit someone in the head. It’s not like you were trying to hit them in the head. In fact, if you could purposefully hit someone in the head with one of those difficult to throw balls at such a young age, you probably should have been rewarded for your ability.

Mayonnaise–why in the world would anyone eat that on purpose?

If you can answer any of these questions, I’d appreciate it.

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So, for all of those who are in favor of “punishing” evil corporations like oil companies who make a profit by raising their taxes, do you get it now? Do you finally understand that it isn’t really the company who pays the tax, it’s the end user? Do you now see how increasing their cost is actually a tax increase on regular people?

It doesn’t really matter if you get it or not–the people doing the taxing do. These are the same people who do you the “favor” of automatically withholding your income tax from every paycheck so you don’t realize how much you are actually paying.

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The Federal Reserve was brought into existence in 1913 because they said they needed a “lender of last resort” and they needed a “stable currency”. Now, I don’t think it is a lender of last resort, I think it’s become a spender of first resort.

Technically, they are more of a printer than a spender. Congress is turning spending duties over to the Executive branch. And who can blame them? Baseball season is just around the corner, and they have to concern themselves with making sure no one is using steroids.

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It would have been cool if Mr. Obama could have swung a Wii Fit, but those are tough to find.

Ok, seriously? DVDs? I think, as a general rule, you should stray away from giving heads of state gifts that you can get on Amazon or in the White House Gift Shop, although the James Bond Blu-ray set or a Kindle 2 would be cool. But I’ve received better gifts than DVDs in the past year, and I couldn’t get elected to the board of my HOA.

So, of course, I have some ideas for future gifts that are better than DVDs if the President ever decides to actually give something thoughtful or significant. These are all things I think the President could actually pull off:

1. An external hard drive with all the music he downloaded back in the Napster days
2. Offer to help him move, and actually follow through
3. Tickets to an Oprah taping (transportation to Chicago not included)–bonus if you can swing a lifetime membership to the Oprah Book Club
4. Let him “ride bitch” on one of the motorcycles in the Presidential motorcade
5. Offer to let him crash on the couch for the weekend
6. Autographed photo of the cast of Facts of Life
7. A couple of four day passes to Disney
8. Cubs tickets
9. Hook it up for him to ring the opening bell at the NYSE (on a non-trading day)
10. Teach him how to work the teleprompter

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And it’s pretty interesting.

On Monday, Blue Collar Muse honored me by having me on his DontGo Show and one of the topics discussed was how conservatives can deliver a message of freedom that excited the voter base, especially young people. I brought up the point that Ron Paul did just that throughout the Presidential campaign, yet was mocked and laughed down by the Republican establishment at ever turn. I believe the term “nut jobs” was thrown around pretty regularly.

Here’s a video from December 2007. Notice the high density of enthusiastic young people who walk by in this video.

Even more interesting–my sources are telling me that the Republican Party in one large middle Tennessee county doesn’t want these “nut jobs” involved in their party.

So here’s my question…

If young people who are excited about freedom are “nut jobs” for willingness to walk the walk (literally) the Republican Party is talking (at least for this election cycle), what is the proper term for the establishment Republicans who only want to talk the talk?

I can’t tell if Tennessee Republicans feel invincible because of the idiocy of Tennessee Democrats, or if they’re trying to emulate them.

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